Mail Bag

Gentle reader:

Often we get questions about things, and we usually respond or debate with people directly. Some questions we think might be good for discussion at large because many of you are asking the same things. Given this, and without further adieu, here we go with our inaugural "mail bag.":

Q: "Ferlin Kearns recently did a video about how Jake Merrick supporters are hurting Mike Mazzei's changes. Agree?"

A: Let us start with a longstanding conservative "rule." It is incumbent on a conservative to support not the most conservative candidate, but the most conservative candidate that can win. This is not to say the candidate that will win, but can win. 

Jake Merrick cannot win. The reasons are simple. He has no plan to raise money, and without air time funded by donors, he cannot win. The Governor's race is not a ground game. Nor a yard sign game. He cannot win without fundraising, or an outside group spending heavily to prop him up.

Ferlin's thoughts in his video aren't terrible, but are based on a fallacy. They are based on polling conducted by CHS, who tries a neat sleight of hand to do "independent" polls while working for candidates. The most recent example of this is the Attorney General poll, which CHS did as an "independent" poll while also working for AG candidate Jon Echols. (we have a question about the AG race below, we'll talk about the race there.) So a) don't believe ANY poll this early, b) CHS has shown growing inaccuracy over the past few years, and c) Mazzei is the only one on TV right now, so of course his name is going to pop in a poll. But also, we have seen other private polls. Despite Mazzei's advertising, at this moment he's consistently showing much lower than the 14%? CHS gave him. 

Ferlin (nor you, gentle reader,) should be looking at recent polls as anything but a current and irrelevant picture of an election that will occur in June after millions of dollars in advertising, at which point Merrick will likely fall below 2%, and Mazzei will get drowned out by other candidate spending, unless of course he 1) remains on air throughout, and 2) spends enough on airtime to prevent others from meaningfully buying airtime.  We just don't see that happening. 

Going back to the candidates that we think can win, our current list includes Gentner, McCall, and Keating. But Gentner has about capped out on what he can get, and even if he makes the runoff it is likely that conservatives will rally around his opponent, and he would fall.

Ferlin's video was based on a fallacy, as interesting as it was, and it was fueled by a pollster that is playing the role of power projection, not accuracy.

Q: "Following your comments in the last email, what are your thoughts on data centers?"

A: First off, would you rather have a data center here or in China/India/Russia? We'd rather have them here. Data centers are coming to Oklahoma because of the expansive availability of land, and the incredibly affordable utility rates. They need significant water and electricity to operate, but many data centers also seek to "co-locate" their own electric generation on site, and unconnected to the grid. We aren't fans of co-location, but an interconnected grid because it leads to overbuilding power plants unnecessarily. Our position is a) data centers are a necessary thing, even if we don't necessarily like them and think they are ugly; b) without data centers, America's technological advancement will falter, and we may as well start flying Chinese flags; c) The Oklahoma Corporation Commission makes industrial users of electricity pay more for power than commercial and residential users; this should be assured here; and d) all water supply should be shown to not place a burden on existing (usually rural) users prior to construction of the center.

Ultimately (particularly on land zoned agricultural), like wind turbines, this is a contract between two parties, and while you and us may think they are ugly, to some they look like money and are willing to sell their land to build one.

But after reading this, if you still don't like them, we'd encourage you to ask the candidates for Governor if any of them have ever invested in or owned a data center in Texas. At least one of them has, and the other campaigns know about it. 

Q: "I read a story that Rep. Chris Kannady is preparing to run for AG? How does this affect the recent poll that came out?

A: We think we've addressed the underlying bias with the poll above, but will add this here: Starling looked much stronger in that poll than we expected, and Echols rolling it out to show inevitability is a surface brag when it should be a real point of concern for the campaign on top of the slowing fundraising.

Despite rumors that Rep. Kannady and Echols are not on good terms, we don't see Kannady entering the race for one simple reason: Both are candidates that would be heavily supported by the liberal trial bar. Echols has already taken large sums from trial lawyers, and his family has a long history of being entrenched with them while trying to offer a facade of conservatism. Kannady just doesn't try to hide it, he's a liberal trial attorney and collects money from trial attorneys and unions unabashedly. With both of them in, they hurt each other and essentially hand the race to Starling. Also recall that Kannady funded "the purge" of house members that wouldn't support the tax increase that both Kannady and Echols voted for during the Fallin years.  When he could have hidden behind independent expenditures, he couldn't keep his mouth shut and bragged about it. It would be his undoing if he ran, and he knows it. Kannady will not run, would hurt Echols, and would not win.   

Q: "You write about taxes as if you don't support cutting and eliminating them. What is your actual position?"

A: First, if we want a government, we have to figure out how to fund it. Jails cost money, schools cost money, law enforcement costs money, roads cost money. So we as communities need to figure out what are our priorities, and then figure out how to fund those. So, on some level, government needs to be funded. But as firm believers in the Frederic Bastiat concept of taxes equating to public plunder, we as communities need to determine very seriously how we go about gathering revenue as conservatively as possible, while also recognizing that we get what we pay for. Don't fund your jail or build it on the cheap (looking at you, OKC) and it'll deteriorate and prisoners will escape. Honestly, our state's tax structure should be overhauled. How we fund schools should also become less reliant on state, and more reliant on local funding. But neither of these things will occur because the Farm Bureau opposes any adjustment that could make property taxes subject to adjustment other than elimination. But eliminating them requires revenue substitution, and Farm Bureau (properly) opposes that too. Go tax oil and gas, and companies leave for Houston. Go look at a rural municipality before and after the only grocery store in town shuts down. We can't grow rural communities without rural funding other than sales tax. (locals don't collect property taxes.) All of this is to say that on some level taxes are necessary to build infrastructure and safety. But how much you tax is a more difficult question that Oklahoma needs to address, and we say people should be taxed as little as possible. 

Thanks for all of your questions, send more!

CW/CM/SC/WB